Gearing up for the weekend

<drum roll>

Question

Has looking at a Lewis Hine photograph ever made you weep?

I was asked this yesterday by a scholar (in certain ways, THE scholar) who knows Hine's work well.  It was in the middle of a conversation that was more or less academically-oriented - the usual questions about Hine's practice of image-making.  It caught me off-guard, not because it's an irrelevant question to ask about those images but because I've never heard an academic ask somebody that.

Truly, Hine's pictures are hard to look at.  All the images I'm writing about are hard to look at, which is maybe why scholars don't often seem to look at them very carefully.  I think one of the most difficult things about these (and other early social documentary) photographs is that there was so much invested in their making, that the photographers really believed that pictures would move their audiences more than they actually did.  But no, I haven't cried.  The question is really sticking with me, though.

More Saturday!

Let it be known that somebody at the Library of Congress also appreciates the roller skate:
Crazy Sk8

Saturday

xoxo

Philly.com has taped up like eight thousand xoxo with love, Philadelphia ads all over Penn Station, which I guess is just fine by me.  It's loads better than sneaker ads, I'll give them that.

However, the text is just - I don't know how else to put it - weird.  I think there was one that said something along the lines of "let's conspire by the fire. with love, Philadelphia."  What does that even mean?  And then there's this: "Pack an extra set of pajamas and stay an extra night. xoxo Philly."  Do people seriously pack a pair of pajamas for every night they're staying somewhere?!  And can it instead read, "Pack a fucking snow plow and stay an extra night! xoxo Philadelphia."  Because we really need those more than a second set of flannels.

Can someone please explain these ads to me?  Am I missing something clever?  Otherwise, I'm just filing this away under "Yet another reason Philadelphia is broke."

Goodnight.

Liberté, Egalité, Faternité

Last week I had a supermarket crisis on my hands: the only Stonyfield Farms yogurt in stock was apricot, which is disgusting; there was no skyr; and the Greek kind had dangerously close expiration dates for someone who forgets to eat breakfast half the time. Whole Foods: fire your suppliers.

I was forced to branch out.  I hate trying new things when I'm the one who has to pay for them.  Also I refuse to buy more than one of any particular product if I've never had it before in case it turns out to be revolting.  The yogurt I ended up selecting came from Canada, so the odds were already stacked against it.

I'm just kidding - I love Canada.  And I love my Canadian friend who recommended the stuff to me months ago.  It's called Liberté, and besides the allure of its fancy French[Canadian] name, it also comes in some swell flavors [er, sorry Canada -- flavours] like plum walnut and passion fruit.  I've only seen it in health food stores so I figured it would be aspertaine-free and not have a bunch of crap in it.  Also it was just over a dollar for a little six-ounce container.  The price was right.  I bought a coconut-flavoured one and it was absolutely divine.  I enjoyed every bite.  The cat enjoyed licking the inside of the foil lid, which I let her do on occasion.  Everyone was happy.

Today I made the Liberté commitment and bought enough for the next week of breakfasts.  The delight of finding that there were little coconut bits in the bottom of some seriously tangy yogurt would not leave my mind.  More had to be acquired.  I was pleased with my purchase.

But, dear reader, don't follow my example.  For I just looked at the label on the back and this six ounce tub of yogurt contains 17 grams of fat.  I didn't think that was even possible outside of fast food establishments and microwave meals and foods containing chocolate.  Oh, and don't try to blame this on the coconut, either, because the passion fruit one clocks in at 15 g. 

Mind you: I am not an obsessive calorie counter.  I don't overdo it, but I don't fret too much over such things most of the time.  Part of the reason I don't sweat it is that I pick foods like yogurt and fruit instead of fried eggs and bacon for my breakfast every day.  Except now my yogurt is some sort of Benedict Arnold fried egg accomplice [pun unintentional, and it stays].  Honestly, there should really be a point after which yogurt is quarantined away from its bretheren and labeled "DESSERT."  I say that point is when the fat content hits double digits.

OK, I'm done yelling about yogurt now.  You're welcome.

Snow Day

First of all, let me just say: Philadelphia, you look ravishing in white.

Work is closed today.  I can't tell you how much love I have for snow days.  I loved them in middle school a lot because I got to sit at home and watch crap tv all day and this was about 1,000,000,000 x more awesome than middle school.  But the whole day was also spent dreading the next one, by which time all the snow would be cleared and I'd have to go back to school.  Now that I'm an adult and I love my job, snow days are even cooler.  Mother Nature calls a time out, and I get 24 hours to fuck around and watch movies and walk around the neighborhood in giant boots and pajamas.  And then everything is back to normal again the next day, and I just pick up where I'd left off.  No problem.

And now I am going to go finish reading Just Kids and find some Price is Right reruns on the internet.  Get your pets spayed and neutered, people.

90s box

So back in 2001 the college kids discovered the 80s.  Something happened that made new wave hits cool once again, to say nothing of the strange and only partially ironic fascination with power ballads and hair bands.  My housemate and I watched as records and cds you couldn't give away five years back were suddenly being snapped up left and right and got progressively more expensive to buy used.  And then a profound idea struck us:

Holy shit, it's not the 90s anymore.  Let's get on this before all the kids figure it out.  We started making lists of 90s hits and misses (mostly the feel-good misses).  And then on our days off we'd raid the two used cd stores in Jamaica Plain, list (when remembered) in hand.  And there we'd labor for hours, making little piles of cds, prioritizing and reordering and debating the relative merits of our selections until finally we'd decided on a small handful of treasures to buy.  The two biggest factors in this process were price v. musical merit, and then also what gaps it filled in our growing collection (which we stored in an empty Budweiser 24-can box).  Is the Spin Doctors really worth 49 cents?  Do we ever really want to listen to Chumbawumba again?  Are they really charging $4.99 for Better than Ezra?  Who the hell are The Toadies again?  Etc.

We were totally stoked about all of this, and subjected just about every house guest to a selection of tunes they almost certainly wanted to forget.  We patted ourselves on the back for our sound judgment and genius idea when we heard later that year that the Post Office would be releasing 1990s stamps.  Boy were we ahead of the game on this one.

I still have the 90s box, though it's all digital now because I couldn't see why I would spend all of graduate school lugging around Third Eye Blind and MC Hammer CDs.  Today just for a good laugh I shuffled the 90s playlist and here for you, dear reader, are the first five hits.  Bon appetit.

1.  Cracker - Low



2. L7 - Pretend We're Dead



3. Jesus Jones - Right Here Right Now



4. Naughty by Nature - Feel me Flow



5. Blind Melon - No Rain (side note: that bee costume is someday going to be my Halloween getup)

Forgetting. Remembering.

Rediscovering a song I once loved that somehow (like so many things) got lost in the shuffle.

Radiohead: Fake Plastic Trees

This is what evil looks like

I'm not even going to post the picture, that's how much it is dripping with pure, unfiltered EVIL.  You'll have to click the link.

(despite the horrors within, this link is safe for work viewing)

Just click it already.

Courtesy of my boss.